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An Afghan hijacker who forced an airliner to fly to Britain is now working at Heathrow, it has been disclosed. Nazamuddin Mohammidy, 34, was one of a gang of nine that threatened to blow up an internal flight in Afghanistan, along with 173 passengers and crew, unless they were granted political asylum. The Afghan hijackers forced the Boeing 727 to divert to Britain where they surrendered to police and the SAS after a 70-hour stand-off at Stansted Airport, Essex in Mohammidy, of Hounslow, Middlesex, is now working as an office cleaner for British Airways. The discovery came after he...

One of the nine Afghans who won the right to live in Britain after hijacking a plane is now working at Heathrow airport as a cleaner, it emerged last night. Nazamuddin Mohammidy was one of a group who took over an internal Afghan flight in 2000 and landed it in the UK, where they threatened to kill those on board unless they were granted asylum. Now it has emerged Mohammidy, 34, was recently arrested while driving a car around the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow airport. Police suspected he was an unlicensed cab driver but were stunned when checks revealed...

Charges dropped against alleged 20th hijacker: Pentagon WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Pentagon has dropped charges against Mohammed al-Qahtani, the alleged "20th hijacker" in the September 11 attacks on the United States, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday. Susan Crawford, the convening authority for war crimes trials by special military commissions, gave no explanation in dropping the charges against al-Qahtani "without prejudice," said Commander Jeffrey Gordon. "They have been dismissed without prejudice, which means they can be reinstituted at any time," he said of the charges.

<p>The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has detained at an unknown location a former Sudanese Air Force pilot who may have been planning to hijack an airliner and fly it into a target in the United States, U.S. officials told CNN on Friday.</p>

Hijacker 'wanted plane taken to Australia' Posted 10 hours 54 minutes ago Updated 7 hours 37 minutes ago The 33-year-old woman allegedly threatened to blow up the 19-seat plane and stabbed two pilots. (Reuters) Video: View video and pictures of the arrest (TVNZ) Video: Hijacker wanted plane taken to Australia: police (ABC News) Audio: Woman stabs pilots, attempts hijacking in NZ (PM) Related Story: NZ hijack attempt highlights security fears: Pyne Related Story: No bombs found after NZ hijack attempt Police say a Somali woman charged with trying to hijack an Air New Zealand flight this morning wanted the...

The 33-year-old woman allegedly threatened to blow up the 19-seat plane and stabbed two pilots. Police say a Somali woman charged with trying to hijack an Air New Zealand flight this morning wanted the plane taken to Australia. The 33-year-old allegedly threatened to blow up the 19-seat plane and stabbed two pilots in the cockpit - one in the hand and the other in the foot. Police say she claimed two bombs were on the twin-engine Jetstream aircraft, which was travelling from the South Island town of Blenheim, but none have been found. The woman was to appear in court...

Authorities believe a teen accused of plotting to hijack a plane was suicidal, and a judge was scheduled to decide Friday whether to keep him in custody. The 16-year-old, who has not been identified by authorities, was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight Tuesday night at Nashville International Airport. He was being held at a juvenile detention facility. FBI spokesman George Bolds told The Associated Press the teen had handcuffs, rope and duct tape in his bag, and was believed to be traveling alone. "His plan had a low probability of success," Bolds said. The teen was calm during the...

On This Day In History November 24, 1971 Hijacker parachutes into thunderstorm A hijacker calling himself D.B. Cooper parachutes from a Northwest Orient Airlines 727 into a raging thunderstorm over Washington State. He had $200,000 in ransom money in his possession. Cooper commandeered the aircraft shortly after takeoff, showing a flight attendant something that looked like a bomb and informing the crew that he wanted $200,000, four parachutes, and "no funny stuff." The plane landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where authorities met Cooper's demands and evacuated most of the passengers. Cooper then demanded that the plane fly toward Mexico at...

Foxnews Alert! 911 Hijacker will appear in new video along with Bin Laden. Hijacker will give his 'last testament'

I think it's really her!

July 29, 2006 -- KATIE Couric had fellow passengers aboard a New York-bound jet on the warpath this week when, as their plane was about to taxi to the runway, she got out of her seat and begged the pilot to allow one of her late-arriving producers to board. ........ The witness told Page Six that attendants on Wednesday's 6:30 p.m. Delta Shuttle flight out of Washington, D.C., had already closed the door and passengers were buckled in, when the soon-to-be CBS News anchor raced up the aisle with a cellphone to her ear and told an attendant she had...

DEIR QANUN AN-NAHR, Lebanon - After 17 years behind bars in a Swiss jail for hijacking a plane and killing a passenger, Hussein Hariri's dream now is to fly a plane he built with his own hands. "One day when I was in prison, I landed on a book about planes dating back to World War II. I read it in 10 days," said Hariri, 39, who returned in 2004 to his native village of Deir Qanun an-Nahr, in southern Lebanon. "I was so taken by the book that I contacted the University of Lausanne ... and they gave me...

The judge overseeing the death penalty trial of Zacarias Moussaoui yesterday ordered prosecutors to provide hundreds of thousands of government documents generated as evidence in the case to lawyers representing families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema issued the order in connection with a civil lawsuit filed by the families against the aviation industry, alleging that it failed to prevent the attacks. The civil case is pending in New York, and Moussaoui is on trial in a separate criminal proceeding in Alexandria.

Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui testified Monday that he and would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid were supposed to hijack a fifth airplane on Sept. 11, 2001, and fly it into the White House....

The sentencing jury listened to a tape of the suspect, who questioned a witness while acting as his own lawyer. Acting as his own lawyer during taped testimony played for a jury on Wednesday, confessed Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui got a captive Malaysian terrorist to finger the man who talked of flying a plane into the White House. "He looks exactly like you," Faiz Bafana told Moussaoui. "You are referring to me?" Moussaoui asked. "Are you certain it's me?" "I'm certain." The bizarre exchange, videotaped in 2002, was played on the third day of Moussaoui's penalty trial, in which a...

US vows to track down hijacker freed early By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor (Filed: 23/12/2005) The United States has vowed to track down and bring to trial a Lebanese hijacker who has been secretly released after serving 19 years in a German prison for seizing an airliner in 1985 and killing a US navy diver. The Bush administration said it had asked Germany not to release Mohammed Ali Hamadi, who was jailed for life for his role in the hijacking of TWA's Flight 847 from Athens to Rome and the shooting of one of the passengers, Robert Stethem. Despite...

Gonzales Asked Germany to Hold Hijacker Wednesday December 21, 2005 11:16 PM By ANNE GEARAN AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales personally asked the German government not to release a terrorist accused of killing a Navy diver, but was rebuffed, the Bush administration said Wednesday. Mohammed Ali Hamadi was freed on parole by German authorities after serving 19 years of a life sentence for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA plane during which a U.S. Navy diver was killed. The 17-day ordeal riveted the United States and brought Middle East terrorism home for many Americans. ``We...

Paroled TWA Hijacker Returns to Lebanon Tuesday, December 20, 2005 BEIRUT, Lebanon — A Lebanese man serving a life sentence in Germany for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner and killing of a U.S. Navy diver has returned to Lebanon after being paroled in Germany, security and guerrilla officials said Tuesday. Mohammed Ali Hamadi arrived in Beirut four days ago on a commercial flight from Germany, a Lebanese security official and a Hezbollah guerrilla group said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

A copy of the Able Danger chart that identified lead 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta as a terrorist operating inside the U.S. a year before the 9/11 attacks is clearly visible in a video of a 2002 speech by delivered by Rep. Curt Weldon to the Heritage Foundation. The Pentagon, the 9/11 Commission and the Senate Intelligence Committee are currently seeking evidence that the bombshell chart, featuring a photo Atta, ever existed - as claimed by three members of the Able Danger team, along with Rep. Weldon. But so far, no physical evidence of the controversial document has surfaced. Until now....

During Israel’s dramatic eviction of its settlers, it went almost unnoticed that on Aug. 15, armed men in Gaza kidnapped a soundman who worked for a French state television station. I’ll bet you’ve already assumed the kidnappers were Arab Muslims. Shame on you. And yes you’re right, they were. The week before, three foreign workers were kidnapped by members of Fatah, founded by the late Yasser Arafat. “Fatah” means “conquest by means of holy war.” No matter what our political views, we all agree on two things: 1) Israel and the West on the whole follow the norms of civilization;...

During Israel’s dramatic eviction of its settlers, it went almost unnoticed that on Aug. 15, armed men in Gaza kidnapped a soundman who worked for a French state television station. I’ll bet you’ve already assumed the kidnappers were Arab Muslims. Shame on you. And yes you’re right, they were. The week before, three foreign workers were kidnapped by members of Fatah, founded by the late Yasser Arafat. “Fatah” means “conquest by means of holy war.” No matter what our political views, we all agree on two things: 1) Israel and the West on the whole follow the norms of civilization;...

During Israel’s dramatic eviction of its settlers, it went almost unnoticed that on Aug. 15, armed men in Gaza kidnapped a soundman who worked for a French state television station. I’ll bet you’ve already assumed the kidnappers were Arab Muslims. Shame on you. And yes you’re right, they were. The week before, three foreign workers were kidnapped by members of Fatah, founded by the late Yasser Arafat. “Fatah” means “conquest by means of holy war.” No matter what our political views, we all agree on two things: 1) Israel and the West on the whole follow the norms of civilization;...

...Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa. and vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, said Tuesday the men were identified in 1999 by a classified military intelligence unit known as "Able Danger." If true, that's an earlier link to al-Qaida than any previously disclosed intelligence about Atta. Sept. 11 commission co-chairman Lee Hamilton said Tuesday that Weldon's information, which the congressman said came from multiple intelligence sources, warrants a review. He said he hoped the panel could issue a statement on its findings by the end of the week...

"Speaking to CNN .. . The father of September 11 hijacker Mohammad Atta said today he had no sorrow for what had happened in London and claimed more terrorist attacks would follow... Cursing in Arabic, el-Amir also denounced Arab leaders and Muslims who condemned the London attacks as being traitors and non-Muslims. . .He passionately vowed that he would do anything within his power to encourage more attacks."

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Zacarias Moussaoui pleaded guilty Friday to conspiring with the Sept. 11 hijackers to kill Americans and declared he was personally chosen by Osama bin Laden to fly a plane into the White House during a later attack. Moussaoui admitted guilt in front of a packed courtroom only a few miles from where one of the four hijacked planes crashed into the Pentagon in 2001. He pleaded to six conspiracy counts, four of which could bring the death penalty. -snip In the statement of facts, Moussaoui said bin Laden had personally selected him to take part in an...

Fifteen minutes after KLM Flight 685 took off from Amsterdam for Mexico City on April 8, Mexican authorities forwarded the names of all the passengers to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The reason: the flight was scheduled to pass through U.S. airspace. by the time the Boeing 747 had finished its three-hour crossing of the Atlantic, Homeland Security screeners were on high alert. The names of two Saudi passengers aboard the KLM flight had begun producing "hits" on the screening center's lists of 70,000 suspect foreigners. The two Saudis, the database reported, were brothers and pilots who had attended...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The terrorist believed to have flown a hijacked airliner into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, obtained a California driver's license without providing the required Social Security number for identification, officials are acknowledging for the first time. Nawaf Alhazmi then used that license when he registered for the flight training that enabled him to pilot the doomed airliner. Alhazmi used a loophole, since closed, in California law that allowed hundreds of thousands of foreign drivers without Social Security numbers to use a generic number in its place. Even some foreign citizens with Social Security numbers skirted the...

HAMBURG - One of the 11 September 2001 suicide pilots, Marwan al-Shehhi, spoke in mid-1999 of causing "thousands of deaths" in the United States, a former librarian said on Wednesday at the Hamburg re-trial of a Morroccan student convicted for his part in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US. Mounir al-Motassadeq was jailed for 15 years for assisting 3,000 murders and being a member of a terrorist group, but appeal judges ordered a re-trial. The ex-librarian, whose name was withheld in accordance with German court reporting practice, told the court that she thought he mentioned the World Trade Center...

'The Jews will burn' 16/11/2004 18:45  - (SA)   Hamburg - A man accused of supporting the September 11 attacks on the United States was close friends with lead hijacker Mohamed Atta and once said something big was being planned and that "the Jews will burn," a witness testified on Tuesday. Holger L, who roomed with suspect Mounir el Motassadeq while they were both students at Hamburg's Technical University between 1996 and 1999, said the Moroccan often had visits from Atta and Ramzi Binalshibh, among others. Binalshibh, who is in secret US custody, is thought to be the Hamburg al-Qaeda cell's key...

BERN, Switzerland (AP) - A Lebanese hijacker who served 17 years in a Swiss prison for killing a passenger and seriously wounding a flight attendant in 1987 has been released and deported to Lebanon, officials said Sunday. Hussein Hariri agreed to immediate deportation and was sent to Beirut on a chartered plane Tuesday with two other Lebanese who had been living in Switzerland illegally, said Dominique Boillat, spokesman for the Federal Refugee Office, confirming a report in the weekly Le Matin Dimanche. Hariri was sentenced to life in prison after he commandeered an Air Afrique DC-10 flying from Brazzaville, Republic...

On Thursday at 9pm, Britain’s Channel 4 will air a docu-drama retelling the story of 9/11 through the view of one of the hijackers. In the previews for this movie, a hijacker is shown to be torn between his love and his love for jihad. I think this is a horrible idea as it will end up portraying the hijacker in a sympathetic light. At some point, the viewer will show some compassion towards the hijacker who helped murder 3000 innocent people. Would anyone recommend a docu-drama to show the relationship with Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun during the final...

The Beltway Beat has confirmed that an "incident" is under investigation at the Alexandria Detention Center involving accused terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui and his reported use of a personal cell phone belonging to a jail employee. A source close to the Alexandria Sheriff's Department tells this column that he was told yesterday that the phone belongs to a sheriff's deputy who has guarded Moussaoui, the so-called "20th hijacker" being held under otherwise-tight security. "He (the deputy) is accused of allowing Moussaoui to use his cell phone to make personal calls," says our source, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "The guard...

Recently translated documents captured by U.S. forces provide new evidence of a direct link between Saddam Hussein's regime and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. Rosters of officers in Saddam's Fedayeen list Lt. Col. Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, who was present at the January 2000 al-Qaida "summit" in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at which the 9-11 attacks were planned, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Fedayeen was the elite paramilitary group run by Saddam's son Uday, which was deployed to do much of the regime's dirty work. The U.S. has never been sure Shakir was at the Kuala...

WHO...? ...ME???!!!Does anyone find it strange how, regardless of the facts, it's ALWAYS someone ELSE'S fault with these people...???!!!

Today's Toles cartoon in the Washington (com)Post, entitled The 20th Hijacker Arrives, depicts the U.S. Capitol building being blown apart by "The Deficit," and with a sub-title, "Who Could've Foreseen?"

Inspector recalls would-be hijackerSaudi denied US entry at Fla. airport in 2001 was Al Qaeda fighter By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff, 1/27/2004 WASHINGTON -- Something gave immigration inspector Jose Melendez-Perez "the creeps" when he started to interview the Saudi who had flown from Dubai to Orlando, Fla., via London, on Aug. 4, 2001, the agent testified yesterday before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Mohamed al Kahtani's documents appeared to be genuine. A check of his name, birth date, and passport number turned up nothing suspicious. And immigration agents knew from experience to give "deference" to...

WASHINGTON: A Jordanian hijacker has been sentenced to 160 years in prison for an attempt to divert a Pan Am plane flight from Mumbai to New York in Karachi, the US Justice Department announced. Nineteen people were killed during the botched attempt led by Zaid Hassan Abd Latif Safarini, who has admitted his responsibility for the raid. The incident unfolded on September 5, 1986 , when Safarini and three accomplices took control of the plane at a stop in Karachi . The pilot and flight engineer managed to escape through a cockpit window, thus making takeoff impossible. The hijackers demanded...

FBI identifies another September 11 hijacker November 05 2003 at 08:57AM Washington - The United States Federal Bureau of Investigations has identified an al-Qaeda suspect who agents believe was the "20th hijacker" in the September 11 plot but left the country before the plan was realised, USA Today reported on Wednesday, citing a top federal law enforcement official. The official said the al-Qaeda operative got into the country but "had to leave" shortly before 19 hijackers carried out the attacks. "We are fairly confident we know who No 20 is," said the official, who is involved in September 11 investigation...

<p>FBI has new 9/11 hijacking suspect By Toni Locy, USA TODAY WASHINGTON — The FBI has identified an al-Qaeda operative who agents believe tried as late as August 2001 to join the 9/11 terrorist plot as the "20th hijacker," a top federal law enforcement official said Tuesday. "We are fairly confident we know who No. 20 is," said the official, who is involved in the 9/11 probe and asked not to be identified. The official said the unidentified al-Qaeda operative got into the USA but "had to leave" the country shortly before 19 hijackers carried out the attacks that killed more than 3,000 people. The official would not say why the operative left, whether he is alive or whether he is in U.S. custody.</p>

Hijackers in same hotel as Saudi minister By David Rennie in Washington (Filed: 03/10/2003) A senior Saudi Arabian official, now minister for the holy places, stayed at the same hotel as three September 11 hijackers the night before the suicide attacks. American investigators are trying to make sense of the disclosure that Saleh Ibn Abdul Rahman al-Hussayen, who returned to Saudi Arabia shortly after the attacks, stayed at the Marriott Residence Inn in Herndon, Virginia. Three of the attackers stayed at the hotel that night and crashed a plane into the Pentagon the following day. His nephew's American lawyer, David...

The hijacker of a Turkish plane has explosives strapped to his body, according to reports. The plane, carrying 204 people, has landed in Athens, Greece. The Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul to Ankara was hijacked after take-off from Istanbul at 8pm GMT. Turkey's Transport Minister said the sole hijacker was insisting on being taken to Berlin. Nothing is yet known about the demands of the hijacker. The plane first diverted course and began heading toward the Aegean coastal city of Izmir, but it later changed course again and began heading toward Greece, Ankara television reported. Several senior Turkish bureaucrats...

RABAT, Morocco: The Moroccan supreme court on Wednesday approved the extradition of a Lebanese Muslim extremist hijacker who escaped from a Swiss prison last year, judicial sources said. Switzerland had requested the extradition of Hussein Hariri, who was arrested in Morocco in December after he failed to return from a prison furlough in September. Hariri was sentenced to life in prison in February 1989 for killing a passenger and seriously wounding a flight attendant during a July 1987 hijacking. A date for the extradition - which a judiciary source said was imminent - has not been released. Hariri, 21 at...

The man behind the failed weekend hijacking of an Algerian airliner asked to be flown to North Korea, the head of Algeria's national security agency said on Monday. Ali Tounsi, head of the DGSN security services, said Farouk Bouleoudina, 37, was under the influence of anti-psychotic drugs when he attempted to hijack an internal flight yesterday from the eastern city of Constantine to the capital Algiers. Bouleoudina burst into the cockpit and demanded that the Boeing 737-800 change course for North Korea, claiming falsely that two accomplices had brought a bomb on board the aircraft. The flight captain told Bouleoudina...

Hussein Hariri, a Lebanese hijacker who escaped from jail in Switzerland, has been recaptured in Morocco after three months on the run. The Swiss authorities say they will be seeking to extradite Hariri. They have also launched an inquiry into the possiblity of an accomplice in his escape. Hariri received a life sentence in 1989 for killing a passenger and seriously wounding a flight attendant during the hijacking of an Air Afrique flight to Geneva in July 1987. But he failed to return to his cell at the Plaine de l'Orbe jail in canton Vaud in western Switzerland in September...

VAESTERAAS, Sweden (AP) — A Swedish court sentenced a former hijacking suspect Friday to four months in prison for weapons violations, saying he hadn't intentionally brought a gun to an airport in August. The district court in Vaesteraas said Kerim Chatty's explanation that he had forgotten the gun in his carryon luggage couldn't be dismissed. The 29-year-old was arrested Aug. 29 at the airport in Vaesteraas, about 60 miles west of Stockholm, after security officials found a 6.35-mm pistol in his hand luggage. He was originally suspected of planning to hijack a Ryanair flight to London, but prosecutor Thomas Haeggstroem...

PARIS (AP) — A former Italian policeman accused of hijacking two airplanes, including a flight that landed safely in France last month, hanged himself in his jail cell, prosecutors said Saturday. Stefano Savorani, 29, had a history of mental illness. Guards discovered his body shortly after midnight Friday. Savorani had been held in the central French city of Lyon since the Nov. 27 hijacking attempt, during which he claimed to be a member of the al-Qaida terrorist network and threatened to blow up an Alitalia flight. On the flight from Bologna, Italy to Paris, Savorani brandished a TV remote control...

A Muslim man once suspected of planning to hijack a flight to England has said he was "stupid" to try to board a plane with a gun in his toiletry bag. Kerim Chatty, a Swede of Tunisian origin, sparked a security alert at Vasteras airport outside Stockholm in August when the weapon was found as he headed for a London-bound plane with 189 people on board. He was originally held on suspicion of planning to hijack the plane but the investigation was dropped for lack of evidence. On Friday, Chatty, 29, pleaded guilty in court to two counts of illegal...

Alitalia Hijacker Arrested - Italy TV says

'Hijacker confessed under threat of castration' By Justin Huggler in Jerusalem 27 November 2002 The Arab-Israeli citizen accused of attempting to hijack an aircraft and fly it into a building said yesterday he never tried to seize the controls. Tawfiq Fukrasaid he only "confessed" when Turkish police threatened to castrate him. Mr Fukra, a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship, is being held in a Turkish prison after being accused of trying to hijack an El Al flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul on 17 November. El Al portrayed the incident as proof of the efficiency of its security. Mr Fukra was...

An Arab with Israeli citizenship attempted to hijack an El Al airliner last night, planning to ram the plane into a Tel Aviv building. He was tackled to the ground by two plainclothes security guards while trying to storm the plane's cockpit, and the 170 passengers aboard flight #581 from Tel Aviv landed safely at their destination - Istanbul, Turkey. The alleged would-be hijacker is Tawfik Fukara, 23, of a Galilee village 15 kilometers west of Tiberias. An investigation is underway to determine how Fukara managed to board the plane with the small knife with which he may have threatened...